Where Have All the Parties Gone? Fraenkel and Grofman on the Alternative Vote - Yet Again

The alternative vote (AV) is a preferential electoral system that tends to reward political moderation and compromise. Fraenkel and Grofman have repeatedly attempted to show that AV is not conducive to inter-ethnic moderation in severely divided societies. In this response to their latest attempt,the author points out that neither political party coordination of the vote nor strategic voting plays any part in their analysis. In contrast, he explains how moderate parties of one ethnic group are able to induce their supporters to cast ballots for moderate parties supported by voters of another ethnic group. Prof. Horowitz also explains why the incentives for parties to arrange interethnic vote transfers are much greater under AV than they are under systems such as single transferable vote, which is in use in Northern Ireland, and shows that Fraenkel and Grofman\u27s interpretations of AV\u27s operation in Australia, Fiji, Sri Lanka, and Papua-New Guinea are contrary to the evidence

A Federal Constituency for Belgium: Right Idea, Inadequate Method

The survival of the Belgian state is an important matter—and not just to Belgium. If, in the physical and administrative heart of Europe, groups that have lived together peacefully for nearly two centuries decide that they must part, what does that say about the prospects for more fragile, more recently constructed democracies? Partition and secession are generally bad answers to serious ethnic conflict, answers that usually have an array of negative consequences (Horowitz 2003). For this among other reasons, the proposal of the Pavia Group is to be commended. It aims to break the deadlock in Belgian politics and provide politicians with incentives to speak for the country as a whole, rather than merely for members of their own group. Furthermore, it does this by a method intended to affect politicians: attempting to change the mix of votes on which they rely for their election. This is a very good first step

Constitution-Making: A Process Filled with Constraint

Constitutions are generally made by people with no previous experience in constitution making. The assistance they receive from outsiders is often less useful than it may appear. The most pertinent foreign experience may reside in distant countries, whose lessons are unknown or inaccessible. Moreover, although constitutions are intended to endure, they are often products of the particular crisis that forced their creation. Drafters are usually heavily affected by a desire to avoid repeating unpleasant historical experiences or to emulate what seem to be successful constitutional models. Theirs is a heavily constrained environment, made even more so by distrust and dissensus if the constitution follows a protracted period of internal conflict. Given all these conditions, drafting a constitution that is apt for the problems faced by the drafters is difficult, and prospects are not enhanced by advice that drafters follow a uniform constitutional process that emphasizes openness and public participation above all other values

Foreword: The Deprivation of Labor Relations Law

This paper discusses the development of an energy systems model for Swedenconsidering electricity, heat and direct fossil fuel consumption in the residential,industrial and transport sectors as well as the energy interaction with the other Nordiccountries and its impact on the Swedish energy system. The model is developed in theOpen source energy modelling system (OSeMOSYS) (Mark Howells 2011) andshowcases potential energy investment options for Sweden in the next four decades(2010-2050). It considers different scenarios and provides a technology neutralassessment of how Sweden can invest in energy infrastructure in the most judiciousway. The paper also describes the new user interface developed called ANSWEROSeMOSYS.The paper further discusses the results of the different scenarios. Thebusiness as usual scenario shows an inclination towards investments in nuclear power.Further scenarios consider the gradual phasing out of the use of oil in CHP plants andnuclear power as well as new energy policies and tax reforms. The paper discusses theseresults in detail and demonstrates how Sweden could improve its energy infrastructureconsidering different policy implications and constraints put up by the availability andfeasibility of different resources. Finally, the prospect of wider stakeholder engagementbased on this model is discussed. Building on the open-source nature of the model,inputs and modifications from research institutes, energy modelling experts,government bodies, as well as the wider public will be incorporated into the model. Thesource code and modelling data will be made publicly available

A New Approach to String Cosmology

We discuss quotients of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime by a discrete group in light of the AdS-CFT correspondence. Some quotients describe closed universes which expand from zero volume to a maximum size and then contract. Maldacena's conjecture suggests that they should be represented in string theory by suitable quotients of the boundary conformal field theory. We discuss the required identifications, and construct the states associated with the linearized supergravity modes in the cosmological background.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, V2: discussion of the wormhole spacetimes corrected, V3: Reference Adde

Conciliatory Institutions and Constitutional Processes in Post-conflict States

There are two important questions in post-conflict constitution making, and at present neither of them has a definitive or uniformly accepted answer. The first relates to the best configuration of institutions to adopt in order to ameliorate the problem of the intergroup conflict. The second concerns the process most apt to produce the best configuration of institutions, whatever it might be. The first question is unanswered because there is a dispute among scholars and practitioners between two opposing views of appropriate institutions to mitigate conflict. Constitutional processes have not generally been geared to yield coherent exemplars of either configuration in a sufficient number of conflict-prone countries to provide a convincing demonstration of the superiority of one approach or the other. The second question is unanswered because in many cases constitutional processes are chosen in a haphazard fashion, without regard to the aptness of the process for the problems to be addressed. Meanwhile, advocates have been arguing for a single, highly structured, uniform process that may be apt for some classes of problems but is not necessarily appropriate for the full range of problems constitution makers confront in coping with divided societies. Hence the questions of what and how are both subject to debate. This Article takes up both questions. It surveys the main contending prescriptions for constitutional designs to cope with serious ethnic conflict, and it enumerates some of the main objections to each. It then reviews some of the available evidence on the efficacy of the contending prescriptions before turning to the question of adoptability. The Article notes that there are many obstacles to the adoption of a coherent set of political institutions to mitigate conflict, which derive mainly from processes of constitution making. For this reason, the Article evaluates some of the main suggestions in the recent literature on constitutional process and thereafter devotes considerable attention to the difficult question of designing a process for constitution making that is geared to the specific problems faced by constitution designers

Improving the Criminal Justice System: The Need for a Commitment

Society asks a great deal of the criminal justice system. It asks for protection, punishment, rehabilitation, and humanity; it simultaneously asks that the system operate accurately, efficiently and fairly. Recently, societal concern has been sharply focused on the criminal justice system and most particularly on its correctional and sentencing aspects. The rising crime rate is blamed on the failure of the system to deal properly with offenders. This assumes too great a potency in the criminal justice system however; many other factors in society have a far greater impact on the incidence of crime and violence. The criminal justice system, even operating at its best, cannot cure enough of society\u27s ills to solve the problem of crime. It is nevertheless true that parts of the criminal justice system can and should be improved so as to slow the rising crime rate, or perhaps even effect a reduction of the present incidence of crime. To help with this endeavor, this article will propose improvements in the present system and highlight the need for them by examining Washington\u27s failure to accomplish its self-imposed goals in the area of corrections